The City: Contagion in Minneapolis

Politically as well as culturally,
Minneapolis is one of the Midwest's more progressive cities. Its
civic-minded businessmen like their suits conservative and their
politics enlightened. Since the 1940s, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor
coalition has produced a series of dynamic liberal mayors, including
Hubert Humphrey and the incumbent, Arthur Naftalin. Thus Minneapolis
seemed unlikely to succumb to the mayoral campaign of a political
novice whose principal pledge was "to take the handcuffs off the
police." Yet that is just what happened last week.

Police Detective Charles S. Stenvig, 41, an independent with a ragtag
organization, rolled over Republican City Council President Dan...